


Running Out

by Wonko



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F, Holby Marathon, Mashed Potato Ficathon, Robbie the Rooster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-02 19:54:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14552325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wonko/pseuds/Wonko
Summary: It's the day of the Holby Marathon and Serena is on shift on AAU, ready to receive the usual influx of walking wounded.





	Running Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ProfessorFlimflam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorFlimflam/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Couch Potato](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14533893) by [ProfessorFlimflam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorFlimflam/pseuds/ProfessorFlimflam). 
  * Inspired by [Daddy Dearest](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14533800) by [ProfessorFlimflam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorFlimflam/pseuds/ProfessorFlimflam). 



> Takes place in the same fictional universe as ProfessorFlimflam's Marcus mashes.

The start line of the annual Holby Marathon was choked with participants, but Serena was still able to pick out Bernie’s golden head in the crowd. She waved to her partner who smiled and loped over to the barrier dividing the route from the spectators.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Bernie said, her eyes twinkling.

Serena glanced at the hospital behind them, the official starting point for the marathon. “Hmm, yes, who’d have thought I’d be in this part of town today?”

Bernie laughed and leaned over the barricade to cup her face between her palms and kiss her.

“Oi oi,” a voice called as they broke apart. “Do all the starters get this treatment or is she special?”

Serena turned to Cameron and reached out to ruffle his hair. “She’s special,” she said, but leaned forward and kissed his stubbled cheek anyway. She glanced back at Bernie. “Any sign of Marcus?”

“Thankfully not,” Bernie replied, rolling her eyes. “I think his eighteen-miler a few weeks ago put him off the idea of marathons for life.”

Cameron’s voice was sharp. “If he wanted to get back on my good side, he could have given me the five grand the lawyer suggested.” At Bernie’s raised eyebrow, he elaborated. “It would help pay off some of the student loans I wracked up going back to medical school, mother dearest.”

“You should make up with him,” Serena said. “Life’s too short for falling out with people you love.”

Cameron had the grace to look chagrined. “I know. I’ll call him.” He smiled. “Maybe after the race.”

Bernie wrapped her arm around his shoulders and squeezed. “After we both register a PB, right?”

“Right.” He rolled his eyes. “Though as it’s my first marathon, any time will be a PB.”

They chatted for another few minutes before Bernie and Cameron had to go and prepare to start and Serena had to head to the hospital for her shift. The marathon always meant a busy day on AAU, the ward absorbing all the collapsees and the dehydrated runners and the just plain unfit who’d vastly underestimated what running 26 miles was really like.

One of the latter group was admitted a mere half hour later, far earlier than Serena had been expecting any of the walking wounded to turn up. Not that this particular example was walking - he was lying on a gurney, clutching his gut and groaning like he’d been stabbed.

Donna took the admission paperwork from the porter and read the salient details. “Robbie Medcalf, fifty-two, collapsed at the one mile mark of the marathon - really, one mile?”

The unfortunate Robbie, his face a distinctive shade of red she’d last seen on a rooster potato, just moaned pitifully. Donna rolled her eyes.

“Right - bay one, please. My name’s Donna by the way - the doctor will be with you in a jiffy.”

“Nosrena,” he mumbled.

“What’s that mate?” 

Robbie just closed his eyes and screwed up his face.

After leaving him to stew for a few minutes, Donna knocked on the doorframe of Serena’s office. “Got a customer for you, Ms Campbell,” she said. “Collapsed after one mile of the marathon. Looks like another one who doesn’t think you need to train for a 26 mile run.”

Serena thought of the extensive training Bernie and Cameron had been undergoing for the last several months - short runs, long runs, rest days, dragging themselves out in the early mornings and the late evenings, rain or shine, cold or hot, seemingly endlessly. She was looking forward to a few leisurely mornings with her partner, now the whole thing was over.

“Right,” she sighed. “Let’s go and look at the chap, shall we?”

Donna frowned. “How’d you know it was a bloke?”

“Someone arrogant enough to attempt a marathon without training? Of course it is.”

Donna snorted as she trailed after Serena to the unfortunate occupant of bay one. “Okay, Robbie, this is your consultant who’ll be looking after you. Ms Campbell, this is-”

“Robbie Medcalf,” Serena finished for her.

Robbie opened one eye. “Oh, God,” he groaned, and promptly threw up down the front of his polo shirt.

* * * * *

After he’d been cleaned up and moved to a side room so that the lingering smell of vomit didn’t disturb the other patients, Serena continued the examination.

“What did you eat this morning?” she asked, checking his pulse - slightly elevated - and breathing - slightly laboured.

Robbie’s face had turned from red to green. “Just some bread,” he said. “And a couple of bowls of pasta.” At Serena’s raised eyebrow, a note of defensiveness crept into his voice. “I read about carb loading.”

“That doesn’t mean stuff yourself with pasta an hour before you do vigorous exercise,” she admonished, then cast a critical eye over his outfit. “You’re hardly dressed for it either.”

He looked down at his denim shorts and ratty old Nike Airs that were probably last fashionable in the 90s. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

Serena rolled her eyes. “I don’t even know where to start. Anyway, since when was running your thing? I’d have thought you were more likely to have joined the Campaign for Real Ale or the local lawn bowls club than attempt to run a marathon.”

Robbie looked away. “A bet might have been involved.”

“Oh, of course,” Serena said. “A drunken bet no doubt.”

They lapsed into silence as Serena finished her examination. There was nothing much wrong with him, she decided. Just unfit, trying to do something he was totally unprepared for, and with a stomach full of simple carbohydrates that the exercise had turned into a roiling mess.

“Well, there’s no lasting damage,” she announced, squirting a blob of antiseptic gel onto her hands. “I expect you can go home later this afternoon, but I’d like to keep you here for a while just in case. Best if you lie still for a while.”

She gave him a cursory smile and was just about to head back to her office and return with more gratitude than she’d ever felt before to her paperwork when he raised his head. “How’s Jason?” he asked tentatively.

Serena’s spine stiffened. “He’s fine. His girlfriend just had a baby. She’s called Griselda.”

Robbie snorted. “What kind of a name’s that?”

“An unusual one,” she replied coldly. “And one that reminds him of someone he loves a great deal.”

He held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay.” He attempted a smile. “I’d like to see him some time.”

Serena barely held back a bitter, derisive laugh. “Since when?”

Robbie frowned. “I took him to the football,” he said, slightly indignant.

“Eighteen months ago!” she exclaimed. “Once!”

She took a deep breath and tried not to seethe at the memory of Jason coming home, decked out in his Holby Rovers strip, happy and excited at having seen his team win, absolutely sure that he’d be going back to the next home game two weeks later with Robbie. She remembered him sitting in the sitting room in that same strip, waiting and waiting for a lift that never came.

“Things got busy,” Robbie mumbled, and Serena felt her calm snap.

“That’s a pathetic excuse,” she ground out. “You said you wanted to be part of his life. To be his friend. Then you dropped him like a hot potato. That’s an awful thing to do to anyone, but to do it to someone like Jason, who needs routine and structure…” She trailed off, shaking her head. “No. You don’t get to see Jason. You’ve run out of chances.”

Robbie looked down at his hands and, to his credit, didn’t offer any kind of excuse. “I’m sorry.”

Serena pursed her lips. “You should be.”

With that, she spun round and swept out of the room.

* * * * *

When Bernie and Cameron, arm in arm, walked onto AAU a few hours later they were met with a chorus of cheers from all the staff. Serena snapped a quick picture of them with their participants’ medals, then stepped forward to give them both a hug. “Well done,” she whispered into Bernie’s ear. “I’ll reward your properly when you’ve recovered.”

Bernie hoped her blush would be explained by the exertion of the day.

“What was your time?” Donna asked, pressing a bottle of water into Bernie’s hands.

“Three fourteen,” Bernie said proudly. “I finished just behind Cameron. New PB for both of us.”

“She let me beat her,” Cameron confided quietly to Serena. “I think she could have hammered me. All that training in Kenya.”

Bernie waved her hand in the air dismissively. “Nonsense,” she said. “We’d both have finished quicker, I expect, but we stopped to help out some poor bugger who collapsed about a mile in. He was totally unprepared to run a marathon - denim shorts, polo shirt, ratty old trainers. Looked like he hadn’t done a jot of training.” She looked around the ward. “I told the marshals to send him here - I’d better check on him.”

Serena blinked once, then laughed. “Oh, darling. You never met Robbie, did you?”

Bernie frowned at the seeming non-sequitur. “Your ex-boyfriend Robbie? No, I never met him.”

Serena rolled her eyes. “You have now,” she said. “Come on. We put him in the side room…”


End file.
